The invention relates to a self-sustaining female breast support, i.e. a breast support which can be directly applied to the skin on the lower part of the breast to support it in an upward direction without the need for assistance by supplementary or auxiliary devices.
It is well known that with the passage of time, the female breast tends to slope downwards as a result of natural and progressive yielding of the muscular masses and skin of the breast.
Leaving out of consideration those surgical interventions to which women increasingly more frequently subject themselves to improve the outer appearance of their breast, it is common practice to use prostheses or accessories of various kinds applied below the breast to lift it or to make it assume the desired shape. These accessories are themselves supported by corselets, straps, shoulder straps or the like, they are costly and very often their presence is easily noted from the outside.
The main object of the present invention is to provide a self-sustaining female breast support which is of low cost, easy to apply, highly functional, and of which the presence is virtually unnoticeable by an external observer.
This and further objects are attained by a breast support comprising a thin, flexible, elongate sheet of shaped profile, having a thickness between 20 and 150 micron and formed of soft synthetic material, a thin layer of skin-compatible adhesive at least partly covering a surface of said sheet, and an elongate bar formed of semi-rigid synthetic material of thickness between 200 and 1000 micron, this bar resting on the other surface of said sheet and being disposed in the direction of the length of the sheet, the two ends of the bar being bonded to said sheet in correspondence of the two end portions of the same bar.
It is to be noted that in this description and in the claims, the words xe2x80x9cflexible sheetxe2x80x9d are applied both to a compact, uniform layer of material, and to fabric of any known type.
Preferably the skin-compatible adhesive is an acrylic polymer with water or skin-compatible solvents, which is spread in a quantity between 20 g and 90 g of dry polymer per m2 of the sheet surface. Again preferably, the quantity of dry polymer is 40 g per m2 of sheet.
Experience has shown that advantageously the sheet thickness is about 70 micron and that the bar thickness is about 400 micron and the bar width is between 1.5 and 4 cm.
To form the sheet (even if it is a fabric), soft or plasticized PVC, polyurethane, polyethylene, polyester or other materials of the same characteristics can be usefully used, whereas the bar is advantageously formed of semi-rigid PVC or other similar material.
As in the case of common adhesive plasters, a sheet of silicone-coated paper or the like can be applied to the layer of adhesive material, to be removed at the moment at which the breast support is to be used.